


Nothing Was Simple

by Brumeier



Series: Bite Sized Fic 2020 [78]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Artists, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feels, Friendship, M/M, Post-Break Up, Post-World War I, Presumed Dead, Prompt Fill, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26516977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: LJ Comment Fic for Masterpiece Theater prompt:Marvel Cinematic Universe, Bucky Barnes +/ Steve Rogers, Paris in the 1920'sIn which Steve is taking some time for himself in Paris and gets some unexpected news about his best friend, who'd supposedly died in the war.
Relationships: Evan Lorne/Parrish, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Series: Bite Sized Fic 2020 [78]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610332
Comments: 7
Kudos: 30
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020





	Nothing Was Simple

Steve sat on the low stone wall that ran along the Porte des Étoiles promenade, sketchbook in his lap. He’d never been much for landscapes, preferring the more dynamic human form with its infinite variety and expression.

He was sketching Evan at the moment, who in turn was doing a portrait of a pair of young girls who couldn’t stop giggling. Quick sidewalk portraits and beautifully painted landscapes were how Evan made money, but Steve was sketching just for himself. 

It had been a while since Steve could indulge in the scratch of pencil on paper, lines and shading, form and perspective. He liked how easy it was to lose himself in it, all his focus on the subject of the sketch while the sounds and smells of Paris moved around him like water around stones in a river.

Steve’s decision not to go back to Los Angeles with Tony after their tour of Norway had been difficult, for both of them. But they’d always known the score, known what was between them was merely temporary. Pepper would look after Tony, and Steve would look after himself, and they’d still be friends.

“You make me look better than I really am,” Evan said, startling Steve out of his thoughts. 

He was standing beside the wall, leaning over just a little to see what Steve had gotten done.

“Are you fishing for compliments?” Steve teased. “David not showing you enough appreciation?”

Evan blushed, but there was no hiding the dimples. Steve was a little jealous of his new friend, and the solid relationship he was in. Being alone was hard. Sleeping alone was harder. Steve had gotten accustomed to having Tony in his bed and missed him fiercely most nights.

“I’m packing it in for the day,” Evan said. “Give me a hand?”

Steve obligingly shut his sketchbook and slipped it into his bag, which he then slung across his chest. He helped Evan pack up his easel and put all the paintings back in the carry box.

“Come back with me,” Evan said. “David’s making a cassoulet. We’ll have more food than we need.”

Steve readily agreed, even though Evan was the real chef of the two. But David’s cooking was getting better, and it was hard to mess up a cassoulet.

It was a pleasant walk back to Rue de Pégase, where Evan and David’s apartments were. Steve carried the easel and Evan carried the paintings box, and they talked about this and that as they went. There was an art exhibit coming up at the Galerie d’art contemporain Boivin, which Evan was keen to attend. 

David greeted them at the door, taking the box from Evan and pushing a glass of wine in his hand. 

“I’m glad you could join us,” he said to Steve. “Can I get you something to drink? We still have that bottle of bourbon.”

“Yeah. Thank you.”

Steve had brought the bourbon on a previous evening, and either David and Evan didn’t like it, or they saved it for the times Steve came for dinner. Either way, he was glad to have it.

They had a half hour or so to kill before dinner would be ready, so Evan took Steve back to his studio to show him the new piece he was working on. Steve, whose own apartment was little more than a glorified closet, promised himself he’d have a space like that someday – light coming in from a bank of windows which offered a view of the Seine, and room enough to stretch canvases and mix paints.

Evan’s latest canvas was still mostly sketchwork, with some color coming in along one edge as he tried out different shades. Steve knew Evan’s favorite subject was the Seine, but this one was Parc Monceau at the height of summer, full of people.

“David says my landscapes are excellent, but also a little sterile because I never paint any people into them. So I’m practicing. I’m better at drawing them than painting them.”

“That explains all this,” Steve said, gesturing at the wall opposite the windows, which was covered in sketches of faces. Men, women, and children. Young and old. Beautiful and…and…

Steve forgot how to breathe. 

He pulled one of the sketches off the wall, and when his knees buckled, Evan was there to steady him.

“Steve? What is it?” Evan asked, alarmed. He led Steve over to the faded, bedraggled couch in the corner. 

“How did you draw this?” Steve asked, his voice sounding like a rusty hinge to his own ears. “Did you know him?”

Evan looked confused. “No. I’ve just been making quick sketches of people in between portraits. He was just someone I saw on the promenade. Why?”

Someone Evan saw on the promenade. Just another face in the crowd, no different from any of the others pinned to the wall.

_Till the end of the line, Stevie._

“It’s Bucky,” Steve whispered, the lump in his throat making it almost impossible to swallow.

“What?” Evan gently tugged the sketch out of Steve’s hand. “Your best friend? But…Didn’t he die at Argonne?”

“I saw him go down.”

But there’d been no body to send home to his family. The fighting had been brutal that morning. The air had been thick with fog, smoke from the guns and mortars, and poison gas, and the Germans had kept cutting them down even as they advanced. Steve used to wish he’d caught a round that day, because watching Bucky go down and know there was nothing he could do, knowing there was no time to stop and help the wounded, or retrieve the dead, had been unbearable.

The best part of Steve had died that day.

“We’ll figure it out,” Evan promised. “There has to be a logical explanation.”

If Bucky was back from the dead, Steve didn’t think logic entered into it. Not at all.

*o*o*o*

Steve haunted the promenade for two weeks, searching in vain for the face he knew better than his own. He sent telegrams to Bucky’s family, discretely trying to find out if they’d heard from him. They hadn’t. Evan made duplicates of his sketch, and kept one pinned to his easel while he was working, asking everyone who sat for him if they knew Bucky.

The man was a ghost. Maybe literally. Or maybe Bucky had a doppelgänger that had passed through Paris and now was in London or Barcelona.

Not knowing was driving him mad.

When news finally came, it was delivered by Evan’s friend Rodney, an often-cranky man who loved science the way Steve loved art. He turned up at Steve’s door well after midnight, pounding loudly and not caring about any of the other residents who might be disturbed by the noise.

Steve put on his robe and yanked the door open, blinking at the light coming from the sconces in the hall.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Yes, I do, as a matter of fact. And the only reason I came all the way over here was to let you know that your man is with John back at our place. I assumed you’d want to know.”

Steve grabbed hold of the door frame with one hand. “Bucky’s with John? Are you…Are you sure it’s him?”

Rodney gave him a baleful look. “Would I be here otherwise? Get dressed.”

Steve had no memory of putting on his clothes, no memory of the three-block trip to get to Rodney and John’s rooms above the Atlantis Café. When he saw Bucky sitting on Rodney’s couch, thin and solemn but most definitely Bucky Barnes, Steve was pretty sure he forgot his own name.

He dropped to his knees before Bucky, like a supplicant, and his hands hovered between them, afraid to touch. Afraid it wouldn’t be welcome.

“Buck?”

“I remember you,” Bucky said hesitantly. “I know you.”

“I thought you were dead,” Steve whispered. 

He’d left Bucky in Argonne. How could he have done that? He should’ve gone back. Should’ve made sure.

“I think I was.”

“The Germans had him,” John said quietly. Steve had forgotten he was in the room, perched on the arm of the couch. “Prisoner of war. He escaped right before Armistice. I don’t know for sure where he’s been since, but I suspect he’s been living rough.”

Steve didn’t ask any questions. He didn’t need to know how John had found Bucky, or how Bucky had stumbled across John, or where he’d been these last few years, or why he hadn’t tried to get back home. 

All that mattered was Bucky was alive. Nothing in Steve’s life had been simple since the war, during or after, but how he felt about Bucky, that was the simplest thing in the world. He’d loved him since they were boys together. He’d love Bucky forever.

“Welcome back, Bucky,” Steve said. 

He tentatively put his hands on Bucky’s knees, breathless from the solid feel of him. Real. Not a ghost.

“Sorry it took so long,” Bucky said. 

When he started to cry, Steve gathered him up and cried with him.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** Title from this quote from _A Moveable Feast_ by Ernest Hemingway: “But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there, not even poverty, nor sudden money, nor the moonlight, nor right and wrong nor the breathing of someone who lay beside you in the moonlight.”
> 
> I'm always happy to come back to the 'verse, so this prompt was perfect. And good ole Bucky, returning from the dead yet again. ::grins::


End file.
